Tag Archives: Ford

Late last year, I attended the Ford Applink Hackathon in Melbourne to gain a broader understanding of how the design and development of on board operating systems is impacting on the Australian car manufacturing industry. It was also a chance to see upfront how theses systems work and to chat with some of the individuals responsible for the ‘cool’ apps and interfaces that are emerging in current model cars.

The concept of a hackathon is to get a whole lot of developers together in one location, provide a selection of tasty treats, energy drinks, and access to the backdoor (usually an API or SDK) of a particular database. In this instance, developers were invited to extened the possibilities of the Applink operating system, which is set to roll-out in many new models in the coming year.

Ford is hoping that Applink will become the standard operating system across all automobiles in the near future – great for developers who will only have to learn one system and build tools for the one platform. However, one ‘ring to rule them all’ might, as you would expect, provide political and economical challenges for participating car manufacturers.

Thanks must also go to the Ford team particularly Martin Gunsberg for all of his help over the two days. Also thanks to Two Ton Max for hosting this event.

Below is a video grab of the event and some insight into how the Applink system works. More importantly, the video highlights where our research can contribute in the grey areas of legislation surrounding communication within automobiles.

I have done some very crude and preliminary research into the current state of apps and automobiles. However to understand the current framework, it is useful to explore the history of internet in cars to reveal how we have arrived at our recent fascination with connecting smartphones and automobiles.

The following is a preliminary look at a few manufacturers and their technological implementation of devices, protocols and applications.

2003: German Ministry of Education research into FleetNET – a type of ad hoc network between cars and objects,

2006: Academics (Ernst et al.) call for IPv6 to be the protocol used for internet in automobiles,

2009: Toyota Prius has a consortium of businesses to develop and implement the ng (Next Generation) Connect system, which backs onto the 3G network – it also employs LTE (long term evolution) to act as a wireless hotspot,

2011: Ford Sync into 10 European models – a move away form embedded technology to enable users to connect their devices, subscription based at $395 plus some features requiring $60; GM offers MyLink: using apps to access Pandora, Stitcher and eventually Facebook, email etc.,

2013: Emphasis on smartphone integration; iOS and Android are producing apps that connect to the car; apps are using GPS and drawing information from communities of users to provide real time information; aCar to interface with the car’s operating systems (fuel consumption, mileage etc); CarLocator; GasBudy; iOnRoad – camera to detect accidents; iWrecked for when you have an accident; 3rd party componentry is quite distinct in this era to connect older cars with smartphones; average cost is around $5.99 per app (needs further investigation); Audi is working with Inrix Inc for parking data; BMW working with Parkopedia Ltd. for info on parking spaces (user communities); GM using OnStar RemoteLinkMobile app to start car and lock/unlock car; manufacturers still unclear about whether to connect to other cars or internet; Telematics is the burgeoning field from these types of discussions; Hyundai has Blue Link mobile services; BMW release “Last Mile” app.

Summary

What this leads me to believe is that there are four distinct eras in mobile internet within cars which has directed car manufacturers to abandon their desire to turn cars into mobile hot spots. The first sees the push come from academia (and no doubt the policy sector) to establish a suitable mobile automobile internet technology and protocol. The second sees car manufacturers implement communication systems that, awkwardly, brings the internet to the automobile. The third has manufacturers abandoning their push to make the car the internet source, and concentrate on app installation. While the final era demonstrates an integration moment where the manufactures concentration appears to be BYOD (bring your own device) to the automobile, where the apps are preinstalled to integrate with the car.

More research is required to fill a few of the obvious gaps here, but what is clear is there are four moments that are ‘driven’ by the political economy approach that are fascinating to investigate. Why did certain manufacturers partner with particular technological groups and not others? At what point did the manufacturers decide to abandon one form of tech for another? Will apps on smartphones be the future or will we see a reversion to include connectivity in the automobile?